December went by in a whirl, as it usually does.  It was full of lots of busyness and a lot of rain!  

Wembley had her 18 month appointment.  She's in the 30th percentile for head size, 45th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height.  You would never know she was below average for her weight, because her belly gets bigger by the day (still doesn't compare to Brizzys at this age).  She screamed a little less than she has in her previous appointments so I was excited about the progress in that area.  Developmentally she is doing great.  She's extremely verbal and extremely active.  In other words, I'm tired.

But she is such a cute little bug.  I love it when she's sleepy cause that's the only time she will cuddle with me.  And then I give her kisses and she giggles.

We had our Ward Christmas Party.  My friend put it on and she did an amazing job.  I spent the two days before the party helping her out, so I was busy, amongst doing other things.  But it was fun to be part of such an awesome night.   We had a visit from Santa first in the foyer.  We then had a yummy dinner with pear spinach salad and different kinds of meatballs and rice.  We then had a Star Search Program.  It was funny, cute, and my girls were enthralled the whole time.  They had delicious desserts and the gym was decked out.  

Briz had her Christmas dance recital, "The Polar Express."  As always it was very cute.  And Briz is starting to turn into a good little dancer.  She loves it and its fun to watch her.

We went with a big group of girls to go see the Nutcracker downtown.  

Briz loved it and was the narrator for Ella the whole time.  She liked being the big girl that could share her knowledge of the ballet :)

All of the little girls in our group. 

We decorated gingerbread houses with the Thaynes.  It was a bit chaotic because there was literally only one night in the whole month where both of us were available, and it was a time period in between dance recital and Nick's HOA meeting.  

On our playdate we made it to Unplugged, the museum down the street.  We met some other friends there.  And I had a blast with Cate and Wembley helping them play and dress up.

Wembley was my little helper all month long.  And when I say helper I mean, got in the way every single time I tried to wrap presents.  Thank goodness for nap time!  I was surprised at how little she destroyed everything else christmasy though.

Sending Dad some pics at work.  Nick got a new job last month and has been working late in the month of december.  With that and his calling, setting up tithing settlement, and my own busy work schedule, it seemed like we communicated mostly via text.

I am mimicking Wembley's excited/surprised face!  

Nick had the big 34 birthday.  It was pretty uneventful.  We did go downtown and stay in a hotel while my parents watched the girls.  The next day we went shopping where I got annoyed with him for being the most picky husband ever.  We shopped for 2 hours and 6 stores for church shoes.  It was really fun!

We came home, had cupcakes and watched Home Alone as a family.  Silver Tuna tonight!

First Week of December

I have been really excited about December this year.  I feel like I am a little bit more on top of my game than in the past, and I had most of my presents done by the beginning of December.  There are of course a lot of last minute things, but it was nice to enjoy the season for at least a week.

For my Immunodeficiency and chronic fatigue I take about 30 supplements every night and I have been forcing myself to get 8 hours of sleep every night. I have also been taking it easy on the exercising, either walking, or very light exercise, and all of those things have seemed to help me feel a little bit more energetic and healthy.

I just really have wanted to be able to spend time in December enjoying being with my girls, doing fun Christmas stuff.

I love our playdates with Cate because Wembley is distracted.  Wembley has been pretty whiney, always wanting me all of the time, and it gets old.  But when Cate is around, she wants Cate.  A break for mom.  Hallelujah!  Wembley also doesn't seem to have the personal space issues with Cate.  I took them to the mall to walk around one morning and they were so cute holding hands everywhere.

It doesn't get much cuter than this.

Later in the week, I took the girls to see Blitzen, the reindeer.  Wembley was obsessed.  I could hardly pry her away from the cage.  Getting her to turn around for this picture was a feat.  We waited in line to pet the baby reindeer but right when we got to the front, they told us the reindeer was spent.  

We had a stake live nativity.  It is really well done and such a cool experience.  Briz and I sang in a choir for a little bit, and then we went to see the live nativity.  

It was such a great reminder of what December is all about.  I tend to get caught up in a lot of the excitement, which isn't a bad thing, but it can be a distraction.

On Saturday, we cleaned our ward building.  And this is how Nick kept Dubs occupied.  

We also pulled out the Elf on the Shelf.  We are LAME when it comes to Elf on the Shelf.  Mostly cause when Nick bought it last year without my permission I was irritated.  I don't need another thing to keep track of in December!  Hence, the lameness of our elf.  Most of the time she forgets to move, and I usually use that as an opportunity to try to motivate Briz to do her chores. "Oh hmmm Snowflake didn't move last night?  Well did you clean your room? No?  Oh well there you go . . . "  It really is cause I passed out at 10 p.m. reading my book and forgot about it.  

My girls are so excited about this month and I love it.

Thanksgiving

I am the worst.  Again.  I didn't take any pictures over Thanksgiving.  It was a fun few days with all of the Cottles coming into town.  I had 13 people at my house.  It was a new experience but we all survived it and no one got sick!

That week I took work off which was SO nice.  I felt like I had so much time.  I spent it prepping for Thanksgiving.  Braving the grocery stores, shopping, cleaning, etc.

The day before Thanksgiving and the day of I spent cooking and baking.  It was actually really enjoyable because my kids weren't bugging me.  I love cooking by myself!  It was my first time making homemade rolls and homemade cinnamon rolls.  I was pretty proud of myself.  I also did an 8 layer rainbow jello salad.  Thankfully I didn't have to do the turkey.  Turkeys scare me (in more ways than one) and it was nice to not have to worry about that.

I was sad I didn't take a picture of the food cause it was pretty.   We had a kids table where they got to color (and didn't eat much). 

After Thanksgiving, we spent some time playing outside at Nike and then went swimming at the Nike pool.

We went bowling and played arcade games where Pops won 25,000 tickets!!!!  They bought pom poms that shed over my house for 4 days.  

The big girls went to see The Good Dinosaur.  We visited Santa, ate at the local burger place, the Giant.  We played games with family, watched MockingJay and then went on a date with adults to see the last Mockingjay movie (dont remember the name).

Pops also helped the girls make fun of Nick with their fake mustaches.

I was tired, but I was particularly grateful for family this year that made the long trek out to Oregon to see us and spend time with us.

Week of Yard Work

November has flown by!  Not sure where the month went.

The week before Thanksgiving was a work week.  I had a lot of work, Nick started his new job at Nike, and we worked a ton in the yard since we had a few days of no rain.

That also means lots of frozen food for dinner.  I also needed to clear up refrigerator and freezer space for Thanksgiving.  So no cooking for me.  Wembley continues to be a disaster at every meal.  She hates sitting still, so sitting still at meals is a battle.  She whines and complains and wants to eat on the run.  It helps when Brizzy is home, because they entertain each other.  But usually Wembley tries to spread food all over Brizzy or poke her with her fork and Briz gets annoyed.

Mmm, peach juice shampoo.  Dubs is turning into such a little clown.

I started working in the yard on Friday.  I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and an immunodeficiency recently.  It's a weird thing because mostly I just feel wimpy, and I try to will myself to have more energy.  Sometimes I think I can handle than I actually can.  I started to rake leaves this day, but I felt like I was going to topple over after a little while.  I was still able to get about half of the front yard done, so I was proud of myself.

This is what the other side of the yard still looked like.

Briz has been learning a lot about the moon and stars recently and she loves it. Every few days she has to go outside and try to find the moon.  One day after school she sat in the backyard and just stared into the sky for about 30 minutes.  So sweet.  

Having Nicks help on Saturday was so nice!  And Briz thought it was fun to help for about 10 minutes.  

We had tumbling competitions into the leaves.  

And Briz and Wembley smashed leaves down into the garbage.  Nick is also sporting his Movember mustache.  Yes, just a mustache.  It was creepy.  And his mom kept making fun of him.

Wembley loves being outside, but it was pretty cold this day.  Her cheeks got all chapped and were red for a couple days.  We aren't used to this whole sunny cold thing!

This is what it looked like after we were done.

And oh yeah, 4 more bags on the side of the house.  We didn't even try to do the backyard.

Hello November

This week we have officially entered into dreary Oregon weather.  It's cloudy, rainy, and cold. It kind of came out of nowhere, but it definitely feels like winter.  On top of that, our furnace wasn't working.  It was kind of nice having our wood burning stove going, but it was COLD in our house.  

Briz only had two days of school last week.  My friend Ashley sent me a picture of her son and Brizzy eating lunch together.  Briz loves Chase, and loves it when her friends moms come and eat lunch with them.  

I have the most thoughtful, best friends in the world.  Carly sent me this print on the anniversary of Holland's death.  I was really busy with the Holly Hoop and taking care of my health so I didn't really get a chance to look at it.  But this last week, I found a frame and after I framed it I just sat and cried.  I was crying for a few reasons.  One because very rarely do I sit and think about all three of my girls being together, but this just captured it.  And I felt so grateful for such amazing friends.  I don't deserve such kindness, but I'm grateful for it.

With our day off, we went over to the Childrens Museum.  Us and about 1/3 of Portland were there.  It was nuts.  And Wembley was getting her molars so she was a stinker. It was a little hard because Briz and Wembley wanted to do different things.  Brizzy was a good sport to follow Wembley around though.  She was just excited to go do something fun with us.

Wembley wanted to stay at this light thing forever!  

They always have new exhibits, and they just stared the Blue Man Group one.  It was pretty fun.  Again, Wembley found her favorite thing and wanted to do it over and over again.

Thursday, we had playdates with Cate and Blair.  It was fun having four little girls around.  It involved a lot of mom and daughter pretend as well as some dance parties/singing.

Thursday night I had baby shower at my house for my Kristi.  It was small, but it was really fun and I'm so excited for her to have her baby boy. 

Friday morning we drove up to Seattle to stay with Bri and Ronell.  We went and picked the kids up from their school and surprised them since they didn't know we were coming.  Briz got to spend some time in Portia's 3rd grade classroom and she thought that was pretty cool.

Friday night we went back to the school for a fundraiser where Portia was singing in her school choir.

And Saturday they had basketball games.  Palmer and Portia had games at the same time, so Briz went to Portias and I went to Palmers.  I LOVE this kid.  He is the sweetest, most innocent, smart little boy.  

That night we went to Cafe Rio.

And the next day they had their primary program at church.

Wembley loved getting all of the attention, although didn't appreciate being held or picked up.  Briz was in heaven playing with her cousins.  It made me excited for the Holidays.

Wembley kept saying. "Thatchew."  She loved him, and they gave some sweet kisses to each other.

I love that we get to do these quick visits every so often.  Brizzy cried when we left of course, as she usually does.  She loves her cousins and misses them.  But we'll see them soon enough!

Post Halloween

The next week was a little rough recovering from Daylight Savings and Halloween, but the girls did better than I expected.  I think the fact that I wasn't sick, and we weren't doing Holly Hoop stuff made it seem not too stressful.

On Tuesday, I cut my hair and colored it.  I hate taking selfies but I knew if I didn't I wouldn't capture the haircut.  I'm really happy with it.  I originally thought I would want to go lighter, but I like the darker.  Although I don't like spending the money, its kind of fun having creative possibilities with my hair.  

I have tried to take Wembley to story time every other week.  It hasn't gone so well.  I normally only stay for about 20 minutes tops because she can't handle it.  But this week, we lasted about 45 minutes.  The last few minutes however, she couldn't handle it.  I feel like I am sweating trying to chase her around and get her to behave/sit still a little bit.  I want to take her cause I think its good for her to see other little toddlers sitting still and listening to stories, but not sure how consistent we will keep going.  

They always do cute little dances and songs and she loves that part of it.  Here, she had her egg shakers in hand, and thought she was pretty cool.

She does love books, she just has a really short attention span with them.  

And the best part is the bubbles. 

On Wednesday, I took Briz to get her hair cut.  I used to cut it myself, but I just think it would be too hard with Wembley being the mischievous kid she is.  Briz has been waiting to get her hair cut.  I was hoping she would forget because I have liked her longer hair.  But there are always tears with combing, so I gave in.  After I cut my hair she told me she wanted her hair just like me :)  I had them cut it a bit shorter.  And I forgot to get an after picture.

On Thursday, we enjoyed the beautiful fall weather by spending a lot of time outside.  Normally, when I'm outside its cause I'm working while the girls are playing.  But I was too tired to work, so I just walked around and explored with Wembley.

We have leaves everywhere!  But the trees are beautiful right now.  I love the NW in the fall.

We ventured out in the afternoon to get Briz from the bus.  I love this cute little coat we inherited.

And this is the face she makes when she is excited about something.

On Saturday, the crappy weather came back.  But we needed to do yard work, so we got the girls bundled up and then continued to stay out in the rain.  Nick did some finishing up on projects in the backyard and I mowed/raked leaves for about 3 hours.  Literally two hours after I raked 4 bags worth of leaves, our lawn was covered in leaves.  Ah!